


Don't Win Them All (But I'd Say I Take Five out of Six)

by cytheriafalas



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Blood, But boy is his head screwed up, But like not sexually, Canon-Typical Violence, Drinking to Cope, Excessive use of the word "goddess", Handcuffs, I mean physically, Juno's fine guys, Juno's physically fine, M/M, Peter POV, Peter has no coping skills
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:46:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cytheriafalas/pseuds/cytheriafalas
Summary: This is set at some vague point post–season 1 and completely noncompliant with season 2, because that's how I roll on my first return to fic in an embarrassingly long time.Juno dies in Peter's arms after a case gone wrong, and Peter flees Mars in an attempt to escape his grief, and because every time he sees red, he sees Juno's blood. But Rita, bless her, learns things Peter doesn't. Literally just plot to facilitate porn.





	Don't Win Them All (But I'd Say I Take Five out of Six)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Dessa's 5 out of 6, because Dessa needs to be in everything. I suddenly want to write a massive fic about everything that happened to Juno in the months between the beginning and end of this fic, and I will need to be stopped. Literally, somebody stop me.
> 
> Also, comments are a girl's best friend.
> 
> This is my first time writing Juno fic, and I have nowhere to direct you to find more of me, because I hardly _ever_ use my tumblr now, but it's [Fangirling Tendencies](http://fangirlingtendencies.tumblr.com) if you want to see what I was up to like three years ago and occasionally now.

It wasn’t as though Peter had never seen blood before—it wasn’t even as though Peter hadn’t seen Juno’s blood before—it was just that he’d never seen _this much_ of Juno’s blood. Of anyone’s blood. Sinking into the red dust that coated the surface of this forsaken planet.

Someone was screaming, and for a second Peter thought it was him until he realized that he was making low, pathetic keening noises from between lips he kept pressed tightly together just to keep from screaming. Juno was making choking noises, sounds that would haunt Peter’s dreams if they somehow got out of this alive. That meant—

“Rita,” Juno gasped. “Where?”

Peter spared a glance for Juno’s secretary. She’d been thrown from the explosion, same as the rest of them, but Juno had sent her out first. Then Peter, thinking Juno was just behind him, but of course— _of course_ —Juno had stayed behind just a few moments longer. He’d done it before, locking himself in a room with a bomb that they’d both thought would destroy him. But Rita was up, screaming, hands pressed to her mouth.

Peter forced his lips to part, to speak. “She’s fine, Juno.” He was proud of how damnably steady his voice came out. Almost as though his hands weren’t covered in Juno’s blood, as though his skin wouldn’t be stained red forever.

“Hold on, Juno. We’ll get you help. We’ll—”

Juno choked on a laugh, a bit of pink, frothy blood spattering from his lips to the sand.

They knew no help was coming.

Peter folded his jacket—why had he worn a red jacket?—and pressed it against the largest of Juno’s wounds, but all that did was make more blood ooze from the deep gash along Juno’s side and the shallower one just across his collarbones. He ended up crumpled on Juno’s chest, holding fistfuls of Juno’s shirt, also red, but stained with his blood.

“Juno, _please_.” His voice wasn’t as steady this time.

Juno shivered. Cold fingers closed around Peter’s wrist, leaving more red stains on his skin.

“Tell me, Nureyev. Truth, this time.” Juno’s voice was barely a breath, and he had to stop between words to gasp in air. The shrapnel that Peter hadn’t dared touch must have pierced a lung.

“It’s…” Peter looked helplessly down at his hands, stained pink and red and brown with Juno’s drying blood. Fuck this desert planet. He looked at Juno, at the violent rips in his clothes, some of which had been there before the explosion, at the blood and bruising on his skin. “Bad, Juno. It’s bad.”

Juno tried to raise himself to take stock of his own wounds. He gained a few painful centimeters, but eventually even the great, stubborn Juno Steel had to admit defeat. “Up.”

“It could hurt you more—”

Juno turned his eye on him, hazy with pain and blood loss, but still sharp with fierce intelligence. There was something else there, something behind that look in his eye that demanded that his broken body obey him for just a little longer. It was _acceptance_.

Peter had never been able to deny Juno. Even with the little red hemorrhages marring the white of Juno’s eye, Peter couldn’t deny him.

He shifted to the side, moving around behind Juno’s head, trying and failing to avoid those growing pools of red, then eased Juno up, careful of that wooden spear jutting a hand’s-length from Juno’s left side.He settled Juno on his lap, bracing him against his chest.

Juno made a wretched, broken sound, another thing Peter would hear forever, and fresh, hot rivulets of blood spilled onto Peter’s arms where they were wrapped around Juno’s stomach.

“Shh, Juno,” Peter whispered, his lips brushing the skin at the back of Juno’s neck. The skin there wasn’t red. It was sootstained and soft, but it wasn’t the red of Mars or of blood, but who could even tell the difference between the two anymore. “Shh, I’m right here. I’m with you. I won’t leave you alone.”

Juno tried to say something again, but his voice failed him.

“Boss?” Rita hadn’t escaped entirely unscathed. She was favoring her right arm, and Peter could see a little stain of blood along the front of one of her sleeves. Her hair was mussed, sticking to a few scrapes on her cheeks and jaw. Her eyes were red, and her tears had smeared her makeup. “Boss, you don’t look so good.”

“Rita, listen to me.”

Sitting up must have been helping Juno to breathe a bit, because he only had to stop speaking once to get through the sentence. At some point, he’d hooked his hand around Peter’s wrist, not quite grasping it, but he managed to keep his hand there as he spoke.

“Yeah, Boss, I’m listening.”

“In my desk, there’s a—”

“A safe, yeah, Boss, I know.”

Juno made a sound that was probably meant to be a laugh, but he cut off in the middle of it as it turned into a choking cough. His fingers spasmed on Peter’s arm.

“No, not the safe. Under the safe. Hidden compartment. It’s not much, but…” Juno’s entire body spasmed, and he’d begun making those choking noises again. “Nureyev?”

“I’m here.”

“Will you…?” He gestured feebly toward Rita, whose eyes had begun filling with tears again.

Peter nodded, then found his voice. “She’ll be taken care of, Juno, I promise.”

Juno tried to nod, but his head just fell weakly forward. Peter tightened his arms around Juno until he got a quiet breath of protest.

“Peter—” Juno cut off to cough, and Peter held him while the last of his blood spilled onto the red Martian soil.

 

Peter took a long, long drink and fell back into his chair, kicking his feet up to rest on the table. Well, no, _Peter_ didn’t do that, because Peter Nureyev was dead. Peter Nureyev had died on Mars, holding onto the man that he’d loved so fiercely that it had killed him, too. He was Turquoise now, Roberto Turquoise, a reclusive something-aire who lived alone in a massive house at the top of a mountain, attended only by an old family friend, who handled… well, everything.

Peter took another drink, tipping his head back to stare up at the ceiling. Swirls of blue and green stone stared back at him. It was soothing, he supposed. Or it was meant to be. Peter was just glad it wasn’t red.

The people living in the city at the base of the mountain talked about him, something Peter never would have permitted, but something Turquoise didn’t remark upon one way or another. The whole city knew he was a drunk—nobody called him an alcoholic, because he’d lost somebody, you see. Somebody in the war. A good friend. Maybe a lover. All they knew is that he’d come back from the war different and secretive. Even the best cyberneticists couldn’t fix _everything_ , after all. Maybe he’d taken some wound that had shamed him.

Roberto Turquoise had taken a wound in the war, but it had killed him. The last heir to a dying family, it had been easy enough for Peter to take the bits he’d needed and install himself and Rita in this house on a mountain. Once they were settled and safe, Peter had torn through the house, finding every shred of red or scarlet or ruby and burning it in a massive fire a little too close to the front of the house for Rita’s comfort. He didn’t even drink the warm amber liquors he’d been partial to as Peter, choosing instead clear or dark alcohols that burned as he swallowed. Maybe if he drank enough, he could burn everything away.

“Uh, Boss?”

“I’m _not your boss_ ,” Peter snapped. He opened his eyes, sitting up to glower at Rita, but as he sat up, the bottle toppled to the ground, sending waves of clear liquid and crystalline glass across the floor.

Rita let out an exasperated sigh. “Are you drunk already? It’s not even noon!”

“What’s it to you if I am?”

“What’s it to me?” Rita demanded, putting her hands on her hips and striding up to him, carefully sidestepping the glass and vodka. “What’s it _to me_? I left Mars to stay with you because it’s what Juno would have wanted—”

“Don’t say his name.”

“I’ll say his name as much as I damn well please,” Rita snapped. “I’ve known Juno longer than you, and what would he say if he could see you now?”

Peter could almost hear Juno’s voice in his head. It was wry and dark and just a little bit angry. _What the hell are you doing?_ Juno would have asked, standing almost where Rita was. He was taller than Rita, though, or had been, and his shadow would have fallen a little higher on Peter’s face.

Peter took another drink, emptying the glass. He reached for the bottle before he remembered it had broken. He cast a morose look over at the shards of glass, then shoved himself to his feet to take another bottle out of the liquor cabinet.

It was empty.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Rita said. When Peter turned to her accusingly, he found she’d crossed her arms primly across her chest. “I canceled all the alcohol deliveries.”

Peter decided, then and there, that the best course of action was to go back to bed. She couldn’t take _that_ away from him. But she could follow him, chattering about the latest rumors about Roberto Turquoise— _they all think we’re sleeping together. Well, some of them think you keep me locked up in the basement for…_ well, you know _… but I told ‘em all that that’s not true_ —and updates from Mars, which Peter tried desperately not to hear— _I heard from Jinny who heard from Naomi who heard from_ Franny _that everything’s gone sideways now_ —and more rumors from the city below— _they all think you’re not giving me enough to wear, so I ordered myself some new clothes; I knew you wouldn’t mind_ —and she followed him straight into his bedroom.

“You’ve gotta pull yourself together,” Rita told him. “ _You_ told me all about how careful we had to be. No calling you Peter, no mentioning Juno, no talking about Mars. Now all you do is drink.”

“Do you think I can’t hold my liquor?” Peter asked from where his face was buried in his pillow.He was, of course, laying on his stomach on his massive bed while fully dressed when he asked it.

Rita scoffed and left his bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Peter cringed at the way the sound echoed around his skull.

But Peter hadn’t completely lost his touch. By the next morning, the cabinet was full again, and Peter had replaced the lock with something new. Rita being who she was, Peter didn’t doubt that with enough work she could break the lock and throw out all the liquor again. But she rather disappointed him. She only shot him deeply aggravated looks and sighed heavily as though he personally offended her, which he probably did, and moved through their house silently.

She kept her own house in the city, but spent most days and nights in the house with him. At first, Peter thought it had been to avoid being alone so soon after seeing her boss—her _friend_ —die, but now he suspected it was to keep an eye on him. Apparently she thought Peter’s promise to take care of her worked both ways, and that she’d somehow silently promised Juno to watch Peter.

Peter drank his way through that liquor cabinet and then another. He drank and he slept, sometimes when the sun was up and sometimes when it wasn’t. It was on one of these nights, when he’d drank himself into a stupor in front of the blue flames of his fireplace, that a thud startled him awake.

“Juno?” he called, looking blearily into the shadows.

But of course it wasn’t Juno. Juno was dead. Juno was dead and Peter’s hands were still stained red with his blood.

The walls of his house were red. A brilliant, burning red like Juno’s blood on his white shirt. Like Juno’s blood on Peter’s hands. Like Martian dust on once-white walls. These walls had never been red, at least not while Roberto Turquoise lived there. And yet the red danced like a bloody flame.

Peter stood up—tried to stand. His feet tangled together, and maybe he’d had a bit too much to drink. He stumbled, reaching for something to steady himself. Someone caught him, but not Juno. Never Juno. Never again. Juno’s hands were strong and calloused, and these hands were strong in their own way, but smaller and delicate.

“Juno?”

“Mistah Turquoise, it’s me. It’s Rita.”

“Why is everything red?”

“It’s… it’s just the weekly delivery, Mistah Turquoise. It’s Thursday. They come every week.”

Peter blinked. Forced his eyes to focus. They were lights from the truck shining off the expensive chandelier hanging above his head. That’s why they looked like that. The delivery truck moved as their supplies were unloaded and more ribbons of blood red danced across his walls. Some flashed across his hand when he raised it to touch his forehead, and Peter recoiled, nearly tipping Rita over. She was a stronger, more capable woman than she looked, though, and kept them both on their feet. Even Peter had underestimated her at first, thinking her just a pretty sidepiece, something for Juno to keep his eyes on while he worked. He’d learned early on that she was so much more than that, but Rita kept surprising him.

“Rita?”

“Yes, Mistah Turquoise?”

He’d wanted to ask her why. Why it had been Juno when it should have been Peter. Why the better of them had died. But neither Roberto Turquoise nor Peter Nureyev would allow themselves to ask that question. Instead he said, “What time is it?”

“A little after midnight.”

“Why are you still awake?”

“Well, now that we’re so far from home, one of my shows is only _on_ this late on Thursday night! So I scheduled delivery for Thursday, but of course, they never come during commercials! So I hafta—Oh, Mistah Turquoise! I have somethin’ to do in the city tomorrow, is that okay? Anyway, the man, he’s says—”

Peter waved a hand at her and headed toward his bedroom. The red light was still shining on the walls, and it was making him sick. He stumbled into the en suite and vomited up what little was left in his stomach. He knelt on the cold floor and wrapped his arms around his stomach until the worst of the nausea left him.

He pulled himself to his feet on the sink and rinsed his mouth out with too-cold water. He’d left a half-empty bottle of something here, he knew. He felt about for it in the dark until his fingers closed on the neck of a bottle, and he took a swig and carried it with him to bed.

 

Peter woke up the next day feeling worse than he’d felt in months. His eyes were dry when he tried to open them to see what time it was. He rolled toward his clock and a bottle fell from his mattress to clunk quietly to the floor. Of course, the clock had had glowing red lights, Peter remembered now, so it had also gone in the conflagration of other red things from this house. He looked toward the window, trying to ignore the bolt of pain and nausea that came from looking directly at light that bright.

The sun had at least reached its zenith, if not quite begun sinking back toward the horizon yet. Peter checked the sheets to see if he’d dumped the liquor on the bed in the night, but it looked like he’d finished it before passing out. He swore quietly under his breath, then shoved himself to his feet.

He’d shower today. That might make Rita forgive him a bit for his behavior. And if not, it might make him smell a little less. Even Roberto Turquoise, who had lost so much in the war, would shower occasionally. Peter’s stomach growled and he scowled down at himself.

“Shut up. I’ll eat once I shower.”

And he did. But first, he took a much longer shower than he’d anticipated, luxuriating in the hot water. The sun _was_ heading toward the horizon when he finally emerged, hair hanging wet and flat. He pulled on a pair of pants he thought were probably clean and a shirt he left unbuttoned. Rita likely wouldn’t be back until much later tonight if she’d felt the need to tell him she was going under the guise of asking for permission he’d never deny anyway.

Neither the shower nor the morning-after sobriety made his aching head feel any better, so Peter headed toward the kitchen, snagging another bottle of dark alcohol from the cabinet as he passed without much caring what it was. He took a moment to drop a single ice cube into the glass and pour the alcohol over it—rum, apparently—then set about scavenging for food. Rita had left some sort of nutty bread fresh from the bakery in the city, and Peter took a few bites of a piece, just enough to sate the uncomfortable pangs in his stomach.

Stomach quieted, he took a sip of the rum and closed his eyes as the flavor washed across his tongue. This hadn’t been something he’d ordered. He’d been trending toward the kind of alcohol that smelled like it was meant to be a disinfectant, not something anyone was supposed to drink. Maybe Rita had hoped if he _wasn’t_ drinking disinfectant, he wouldn’t have such horrible hangovers in the morning. Or… whenever he woke up.

He raised the glass to his lips to take another sip and stopped. There had been a sound behind him. Quiet enough that Peter could _almost_ think he’d imagined it. He had a few knives in drawers near him, but he doubted he’d be able to get to one before whoever was behind him, especially if whoever it was favored guns, and most people Peter dealt with did.

“Nureyev?”

The glass fell from suddenly numb fingers, catching the edge of the counter and tumbling to the floor in pieces. Peter saw a flash of red, and he squeezed his eyes shut again and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

“No.”

Quiet footsteps. That had been the sound he’d heard before. “Nureyev?”

“ _NO!_ ”

A hand on his shoulder, gentle pressure moving him away from the glass on the floor, then trying to turn him. Peter let himself be drawn away from the broken glass, but he grabbed at the counter with one hand to resist being turned. He refused to see this hallucination-Juno covered in blood in front of him. He refused to see the red.

“You’re dead. You’re _dead_.”

“It’s me, Nureyev. Turn around.”

Peter swallowed, then released the counter and let hallucination-Juno turn him. They were both silent for a few seconds until Peter opened his eyes and found himself looking directly down into Juno’s eyes. There were two of them, now.

Oh, _stars_ , this looked like Juno.

That nose was still the same, scarred and broken. Aside from there now being two eyes, they were exactly the same as he remembered. The new eye was a clear work of art. Peter couldn’t tell a difference between them until a flash of light from a cloud uncovering the sun caught the artificial one and Peter saw the unnatural whirr of a cybernetic pupil constricting.

“ _You’re dead_.” Peter’s voice wasn’t steady. This cruel, cruel hallucination was going to break him. He couldn’t—

“I’m sorry,” the thing that wasn’t Juno, _couldn’t be_ Juno, said to him. His hand was still on Peter’s shoulder, broad and warm and steadying. “Nureyev, I’m so sorry.”

Peter had been so horrifically shocked that he hadn’t even realized Rita was in the room too. She stepped a little further forward. “Mistah Turquoise, it is him.”

That was what did it. Peter shoved past hallucination-Juno. “How dare you? How dare you bring this… this… _thing_ to my house? He’s _dead_ , Rita. Because if he’s not dead, how dare you know he was alive and let me become _this_?”

Rita cringed, and hallucination-Juno was moving, putting himself between Rita and Peter. He held an arm out, the flat of his hand in the center of Peter’s bare chest. “It’s not her fault. I told her—”

“I carried your body.”

Everything this hallucination-Juno did screamed that he _was_ Juno. He moved like Juno. He put himself so thoughtlessly into danger—not that Peter would ever hurt Rita. Even his hands felt right, and Peter had never been able to forget Juno’s hands. There wasn’t enough liquor in the universe to let him forget that. “I carried your body.”

He’d carried the body to the car they’d parked a good distance away; they’d both been sunburned by the time they’d reached it. They hadn’t been planning to run in a panic, after all. Rita had driven, and Peter had sat in the back seat, cradling Juno’s bloodied body in his arms and on his lap.

Hallucination-Juno’s fingers twitched on Peter’s skin. “Rita, why don’t you head back to the city?” he suggested. “Thank you for the ride.”

“Uh, yeah, whatever you say,” Rita said. She’d already begun backing toward the door. “Uh, Boss?”

“Yeah, Rita?”

“You gonna be okay?”

The faintest of smiles crinkled hallucination-Juno’s lips. There was a scar there at the corner of his mouth that was new. “Yeah, I think I can take care of myself.”

Rita’s scoff said exactly what she thought of that, but her footsteps retreated and the door closed behind her.

Peter closed his eyes to avoid looking at hallucination-Juno. “I carried you.”

Juno’s skin had been so, so red. Dried blood that wouldn’t come off. The hospital had taken Juno’s body from him at the city, the nurses had to pry Peter’s arms off him to take him away, but then he’d been left with just Juno’s blood. Red on his skin and his shirt that never went away. He’d had to throw those clothes away. He’d left the car somewhere in the city where it would get stolen, and he’d never have to think about it again.

They’d never given him the body back. He’d tried, desperately, through legal and illegal means, but he’d never managed it. Just one more Juno-related thing that Peter had failed at. Officially, Juno had had nobody. He’d been cremated, and his ashes had been buried with the rest of the bodies that showed up on Hyperion’s streets. So Peter had fled, unable to stay on the planet that had claimed Juno’s life, no matter how much Juno had loved that red wasteland. He’d spent hours trying to scrub the last of Juno’s blood from his skin, but he’d failed. His hands were _still red_.

Hallucination-Juno’s hands closed around Peter’s. “It’s _me_ , Nureyev. What do you need me to tell you? You were Rex Glass when I first met you. I cuffed you the first time we kissed. We were in that tomb together with Miasma. She…” hallucination-Juno’s voice got a little rougher and he cleared his throat, “she tortured you whenever I wouldn’t tell her what she wanted.”

“Anyone could know that.”

Hallucination-Juno sighed. “I told you I loved you in that tomb. While we were waiting for that bomb to go off.”

Peter opened his eyes. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did!” Hallucination-Juno sounded just as offended as real-Juno would have sounded. He cocked his head as he thought back. “Okay, I didn’t exactly _say_ ‘I love you,’ but you did, and I agreed with you. You called yourself a fool.”

If this was some scheme to break him, Peter decided, they’d done a bang-up job of it, whoever they were. Hallucination-Juno looked like Juno. He felt like Juno. His fingers wrapped around Peter’s hands just as they had when they lay in bed together. He sounded like Juno. Well, Peter was already broken. It had only taken this one man to break him where so many others had tried and failed.

He met Juno’s eyes and tried not to see the shadows of those pinprick hemorrhages in Juno’s eyes, the bruises on his throat. Tried not to see the ash and blood that had mixed into red mud on Juno’s cheeks.

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Juno said. His wide eyes bored into Peter’s, practically begging him to believe. Something in Peter that he thought he’d killed in himself stirred. “I remember… I remember you. I remember you holding me,” Juno pressed Peter’s hands to his shirt, one on his stomach and the other just a little higher, “with your hands here. I remember dying. I mean, I remember it going black. But then it was bright again, and everything hurt.” He swallowed thickly. “They told me most of this later, and what they didn’t, I managed to piece together on my own. They brought me back somehow, fixed me. Well,” Juno pressed a hand to where that piece of shrapnel had pierced his lung and gestured toward his eye, “mostly. Replaced a few parts.”

“Who did?”

Juno became suddenly guarded. He took a tiny step back, glancing over his shoulder as though expecting someone to be there. “I can’t tell you.” He seemed to predict Peter’s protestation. “Ask me anything but that. I’ll tell you everything else.” His voice caught a little on _everything_.

“Juno?”

“Can we sit down?” Juno asked, glancing toward the massive black couch in the living room. At Peter’s nod, he led the way and settled down, holding out a hand for Peter to join him.

Peter went to sit at Juno’s side and found Juno drawing him onto his lap instead. Juno’s arms curled around Peter’s waist, warm and comforting, and he buried his face against the skin at the side of Peter’s throat. He took a deep breath in.

“You smell different.”

“The cologne is in my room,” Peter said, as though that were some bit of information Juno might need to know. It sounded pathetic to him, even as he spoke.

Juno huffed out a quiet laugh, then gazed up at Peter as though he were something precious. He cupped Peter’s face with one hand. “Nureyev…”

“Tell me how you’re alive.”

Juno swallowed, and this time he was the one to close his eyes. “They fixed me, but not out of the goodness of their hearts. I could be useful to them. Someone with my skill set, but someone dead. Someone with nobody to identify them. Familiarity with Hyperion. I’ve done…” Juno choked on his words, and for a second Peter could see that pink-red blood on his lips again. He touched the unscarred corner of Juno’s mouth to confirm it wasn’t there. Juno’s lips were chapped when they brushed against Peter’s fingertips as he spoke. “I’ve done _awful_ things.”

The grief practically radiated off Juno. It was in the way he tightened his arms around Peter’s waist. It was in the way he turned his head to press against Peter’s fingers. It was in the shame written into every line of his face, and there were a few more now than there had been just over a year ago. It was in the tears in Juno’s real eye—cybernetic eyes were unable to form tears, after all. But Juno didn’t let those tears fall.

“They owned you,” Peter said. He’d already begun cataloguing the people and corporations who had the power to do this, to bring someone back from the dead and then control him, especially someone like Juno. He couldn’t begin to imagine what they’d held over his head to ensure his compliance. The list was short. He’d find them. Destroy them. There would be nothing left. And they would die with Juno’s name on their lips.

“I could have refused,” Juno said, still so stubbornly heroic. “I could have—”

“Could you? People like this, Juno, they make it seem like you have a choice, but you don’t. You never did.” _I know because I’m one of them_ , Peter thought. He’d manipulated people that way, twisting them until they had no choice. Until they were incapable of refusing, but he’d always left them that little illusion of free will. It was always more effective than taking everything away. If people truly had nothing left, they had nothing to gain from helping you. Of course, he’d never used them to murder anyone, which is what he assumed Juno meant by “awful things.”

So Peter kissed him.

Juno was surprised into silence for once in his life. Then he started kissing Peter back, one hand coming up to cup the back of his head and run his fingers through the still-damp, too-long hair. Juno kissed like a broken man, like he’d resigned himself to a life of loneliness and someone had just held their hand out to him, and he clung to it.

Peter managed to keep control of himself until he caught Juno’s lip in his teeth and Juno moaned. It was a deep, desperate sound. Peter twisted, slinging a leg over Juno’s hips and rising just enough to make Juno stretch up to meet him. He kissed Juno until he’d earned that sound again, this time with a hand slipping beneath his shirt to come to rest on Peter’s back.

“It doesn’t matter,” Peter said when he managed to pull far enough away to form words.

“Huh?”

“Always such an elegant lady, Juno.” Before Juno could recover enough of himself to get offended Peter added, “Whatever you did. It doesn’t matter.”

But that look was back on Juno’s face, warring with the clear desire to keep kissing Peter the way he had been. “You gotta understand. What I did. Why I did it.” Peter started to pull away, but Juno’s arm tightened around his waist and held him in place. “Please.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Juno.” Peter settled back down on Juno’s lap. “Tell me what you need to tell me. I’ll listen.”

Juno’s voice went flat as he spoke, as though he needed to separate himself from what he was saying, and he wouldn’t look directly at Peter. He focused his eyes on a point just over Peter’s left shoulder.

“When I woke up, they gave me a bill. Said this was what it cost to repair me. And that I’d work it off before they let me go. Told me that if I didn’t, they’d find you and Rita, and make you pay instead. Showed me some pictures of the two of you to prove that they weren’t lying.”

“Juno…”

Juno shook his head. “They said there were tiers of work I could do. Easy stuff got me a few creds at a time, not even enough to cover the interest on my bill. Didn’t matter to them that I hadn’t _asked_ anyone to bring me back. The worse it got, the more illegal it got…” he cleared his throat, “but the wetwork could clear up my debts in a few months. ‘Course, anything I used cost more money. Rehab. Food and housing. Weapons. I tried to pick the assignments that I could live with, but my debts kept building. I had to do something, I had to get back to… to you. And Rita. So I took them up on other jobs.”

Juno’s throat worked as he struggled to speak. His pulse was racing, and those might have been tears in his eye again. Peter leaned in and kissed the outer corner of Juno’s eye.

“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to right now.”

It was clear enough how all this ended. It was barely eighteen months after Juno had died in Peter’s arms and here he was with a cybernetic eye and lung at least. Intense reparative and cosmetic surgeries. The time to heal.

“I’ve _killed_ people in cold blood.”

“So have I.” That reply startled Juno. He blinked up at Peter. “Do you think less of me knowing that?”

“I already knew it. You had your reasons—”

“So did you.”

Peter leaned down to kiss Juno again, more gently this time. Their first kiss had been desperate loss, but Peter tried to push forgiveness into this kiss. He knew Juno would probably never forgive himself, and that Peter’s forgiveness wasn’t what he needed, anyway. But he tried until Juno’s hands skimmed up from Peter’s hips to his sides and his fingers dug in. All the while, Peter was formulating an idea.

Peter pulled back until their lips brushed. “Do you trust me, Juno?”

That wasn’t the real question, of course. The real question was whether or not Juno could still trust _himself_ enough to know if he trusted Peter.

But Juno didn’t hesitate. “With my life.”

“Come with me.”

Peter stood and Juno followed him. Peter led the way into his bedroom, closing the door behind Juno, and then Juno surged forward to kiss him, enfolding Peter in his arms. So Peter surrendered for a few moments, letting himself bask in the warmth that was Juno; then he began working Juno backward toward the bed and tugging at Juno’s shirt.

Juno caught Peter’s wrists just as the backs of his legs hit the end of the bed. “I look different.”

“You’re alive.” Peter hesitated with his fingers wrapped around the hem of Juno’s shirt. “You _are_ alive?”

Juno smiled, a quick quirk of his lips, then he leaned down to kiss Peter’s forehead. “I’m alive. I swear.” He released Peter’s hands. “Go ahead.”

Peter pulled Juno’s shirt over his head and tipped him back on to the bed. Juno went without protest, catching himself on his elbows. Peter took a moment to just look at Juno, running his eyes up from Juno’s feet to his head. The shoes were obviously old, scuffed and worn. The pants, too, were old and ragged. He’d clearly had them for a long time and they’d seen serious wear. He tried not to picture Juno wearing his clothes ragged to afford adding another cred to his bill. Peter planned to get Juno a nice dress as soon as he could. Something in sapphire or emerald. It was a shame Juno had always looked so good in deep red.

There were more scars on Juno’s stomach and chest than there had been the last time Peter saw him. There was one running almost the entire length of his stomach, cutting across firm muscle and his navel, a stretch of paler skin that made Peter vaguely ill to look at. He’d had his hands there, trying to hold in Juno’s blood and so, so relieved that the wound hadn’t gone any deeper or he would have been trying to hold Juno’s organs in. There were a few older scars, some starburst laser burns and some from knives. But there, just below his ribcage on his left. An oddly shaped scar from a puncture wound with other scars all around it. Peter could see the shadow of the shrapnel in that first scar, then the telltale marks of replacement lung surgery.

“…eyev? Peter!”

Peter actually jumped, tearing his eyes away from those scars and swallowing. “Yes, Juno?”

Juno had sat up while Peter’s mind had gone… wherever it had gone. He was holding his shirt to his chest with one hand and bracing himself with his other. “If this… If this is too bad, we don’t have… I could keep my shirt on.”

Peter moved around the end of the bed to sit beside him, reaching out to take Juno’s shirt from him and drop it on the floor. He rested one hand on that shrapnel scar and began digging in his bedside drawer with his other hand behind him.

“No, Juno. It’s not that. It’s…” Peter Nureyev was good with words. He was rarely at a loss for what to say, but Juno’s scars stripped him of that ability. “I watched you die. I watched the piece of wood that caused this come all the way through your back and out your chest.”

Juno leaned forward and caught the back of Peter’s neck, pulling him down for another kiss. Peter let him. Juno tasted too good for anything else.

“I’m sorry,” Juno whispered between kisses. “I’m so sorry.”

His hands were working their way up Peter’s bare sides, callouses scraping along the sensitive skin. Before he could get Peter’s shirt over his shoulders, Peter had found what he was looking for in the drawer and ran his hands up Juno’s arms, lifting them over his head. In a motion so smooth that Juno didn’t notice until it was too late, Peter slipped the handcuffs around his wrists and up against the magnetic lock in the headboard. Whoever Roberto Turquoise had been, he’d certainly had proclivities.

Juno’s eyes went wide and he tugged at the handcuffs as though expecting some sort of give. The handcuffs had longer chains between them than most handcuffs, at least most Peter had been in, giving Juno just enough room to tug at the chains, but not enough to lower his hands. “N-Nureyev?”

“You said you trusted me with your life, Juno. Trust me with this. If you tell me to stop, I stop. I want to give you something that might help for a little while.”

Peter watched Juno regain control of himself through some supreme force of will. He closed his eyes and took two deep breaths. When he opened his eyes again, there was a new kind of heat burning in them. Juno nodded.

Peter leaned in to press a single kiss to his lips. “That’s my goddess, my Juno. You’re _beautiful_.”

Juno squirmed a little, like he was uncomfortable with the praise. Peter soothed him with another kiss and a hand on his chest. “Is this okay? Is there anything you don’t want?”

“Uh… no blindfolds. And no gags. I’ve… I’ve had enough of those.”

Personally, Peter would never have considered anything that would limit the sounds Juno could make, but he nodded gravely to show Juno he was serious. He also wanted to find whoever had subjected Juno to those blindfolds and gags and kill them with his bare hands. “Understood. No blindfolds, no gags. What do you do to get me to stop whatever I’m doing?”

“I ask?”

“Exactly. Tell me to stop, and I stop. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

Peter took a few moments longer than necessary making sure Juno was comfortable with his arms up above his head. He added a pillow to reduce the strain on his shoulders, then kissed his way from one shoulder to the other across the thin scar that ran along Juno’s collar bones.

“Have you ever seen yourself like this?” Peter asked. He ran his hands down the center of Juno’s chest, fingernails raking just a little. Just enough to make Juno catch his breath.

“How’m I supposed to see myself like this?” Juno countered. “I’ll tie you down one day and ask you the same question.”

Peter leaned in close. He let his lips brush the edges of Juno’s ear. “It’s called a mirror, darling. I know exactly what I look like tied to a bed.”

The sound Juno made was _almost_ a growl.

Peter grinned at him. “I can’t wait to get you in a dress again. Something gauzy and silk. Something that hangs off your hips. Cut low on your back so I can touch your skin whenever I want.”

Juno shuddered as Peter traced the neckline he wanted, a deep v-cut, his palms brushing across Juno’s nipples. The handcuffs rattled.

“Something fit for my goddess.” Peter kissed Juno’s throat, brushed the points of his teeth across the skin. Juno hissed in a breath. His lips closed around Juno’s nipple, already nicely peaked for him, and Juno swore. The handcuffs rattled again and the muscles in Juno’s arms flexed. Peter rested one hand on Juno’s bicep as he flicked his tongue across Juno’s nipple.

Juno breathed something out that might have been _Nureyev_ , but could have just as easily been air. That wouldn’t do at all. If Juno was going to be calling Peter’s name, he’d be calling his first name, and he’d be doing it loud enough for anybody in the house to hear.

Peter slid closer to Juno, then flung his leg over Juno’s hips and settled himself down. Juno breathed in sharply, those eyes locked on Peter’s face. He’d wrapped his hands around the handcuff chains to give himself something to hold onto. His knuckles had gone pale.

“Are you doing okay, darling?”

Juno nodded, swallowing heavily. “I… I didn’t expect you to take me back. Like this. Or at all. We both know I don’t deserve—”

Peter laid a single finger across Juno’s lips. “No.”

“No?” Peter rolled his hips back and Juno’s body arched. He gasped and the handcuffs rattled once more. “Fuck. Fuck, Nureyev. Fuck. It’s been… shit, it’s been too long.”

Peter hid a satisfied smile. “Let me take care of you, my goddess, my gem, my light. Let me buy you jewels to drape around your neck,” he kissed the hollow at the base of Juno’s throat and felt the vibrations of a moan there when he sucked a red mark into the skin. It would fade in moments, more’s the pity. He ran his hands down Juno’s arms. “Sleeves of gold and pearls on one of your dresses. Silver and emerald on another. But some we’ll have to leave sleeveless, so everyone can see how tight you hold me when we dance, my beautiful lady.”

Juno’s pupils were dilated, his breath coming fast. His white teeth had sunk into his bottom lip to keep himself quiet. Peter ran his knuckles along Juno’s cheek and up to his forehead, then sank his fingers into Juno’s curls. “We’ll thread diamonds in your hair until you shine like the goddess you are.” That was entirely unpractical, Peter knew, but it sounded pretty. “Nobody will be able to take their eyes off you all night, but I’ll take you home with me.”

Peter slid off Juno and stood at the edge of the bed. Juno made a quiet, whining protest, and Peter smiled. It was a predatory grin, one that made Juno’s breath catch at the promise. He crossed to the end of the bed and reached for Juno’s shoes, pulling off first one, then the other, and then his socks. He ran his hands up Juno’s pantlegs until he reached mid-calf. “Shoes up to here, I think. The softest leather. A slit in the dress up to here,” he traced up Juno’s right leg until just above his knee. “So everyone will be able to see what they can’t have. You’ll have everyone drooling over you, my goddess, my queen. Flashes of skin as we dance. You’ll be better than everyone there, more beautiful than anyone. More wanted than anyone, and I’ll be at your side all night. They’ll all want you, want to touch you. Would you let them, darling?”

It took Juno a second to realize Peter had asked him a question. His eyes were already dazed. “Only you.”

That spoke to something deeply primal in Peter. He’d never demanded monogamy in his partners, rarely expected it, but with Juno… with Juno it was different. With Juno, he wanted to be the only one who saw him like this. He wanted to be the only one to make Juno like this.

As a reward, he reached up and undid the button on Juno’s pants, but before he reached for the zipper, Peter let his own shirt slide down his arms. Juno made a sound that could only be described as the purest want. His fingers released and then wrapped again around the handcuff chains and his arms and stomach tensed, the muscles there sharply defined.

The months hadn’t been as kind to Peter’s muscles as they had been to Juno’s, although Peter doubted Juno had done it by choice. Peter was still fit, but now Juno put him to shame, especially after the last few months of sedentary drinking and how rarely he actually cooked meals if Rita didn’t arrange for something to show up for him. Juno didn’t seem to mind, his eyes fixed on Peter’s skin as though he could touch him that way.

“Nureyev…”

Peter clicked his tongue, resting his thumb in the waistband of his pants. “Do better, Juno.”

“You’re cruel.”

“Maybe.” Peter reached for the zipper and undid it tooth by tooth, watching Juno’s chest heave as he fought to hold himself still. He took his time, pressing his palm down to give Juno just enough pressure to want to push up. “You’re so beautiful and so, so good, darling. Tell me what you want.”

“Touch me.”

So Peter did. He worked the rest of Juno’s clothes down over his hips and down his legs, then ran his hands up Juno’s legs, leaning in to press kisses to an ancient scar on Juno’s knee, possibly one of his first, even. It had the look of a skinned knee. Then he worked his way up, alternating kisses and gentle nips to the inside of Juno’s thighs. Peter could feel the muscles bunching and relaxing beneath his lips, and he had to take a moment to collect himself.

“You’ll wrap your legs around my waist like a good little detective, won’t you, Juno?”

“Shit, just _touch me_ , Nureyev.”

Peter worked his way out of the rest of his own clothes, then slid back up the bed. There were new scars here, too. One terrifyingly close to the artery in Juno’s thigh. A toe that looked as though it had been broken and never healed right. A burn scar across one ankle that curled down to the sole of Juno’s foot.

Peter leaned up to kiss Juno, something just on the other side of chaste, a brush of tongue along Juno’s lips, but nothing further. Then he curled his fingers around Juno’s cock in a fist too loose for real friction and stroked him. Juno cursed, handcuffs rattling again. His breath came sharp.

“You’re so strong, my goddess, my Juno,” Peter murmured, watching Juno’s body tense. “You do what you have to do to survive, and I’m so proud of you.”

Juno felt _right_ in his hand, just as he had that very first time after Miasma. He’d been so different then, so exhausted and ruined after everything she’d put him through, after he’d thrown his life away only to find it had been rejected. He was more heavily muscled now, but Peter could still sense his exhaustion. There would be time later to fully do what Peter wanted, to keep him bound until he begged. But now Juno needed his release, and so did Peter. He was uncomfortably hard now, and he was doing his best to ignore it and keep focused on Juno, but he ached.

After a few more languid strokes, Peter pulled back. “A moment, dear one.”

He stood and turned toward his bathroom.

“Wait, you’re leaving me like this?” Juno demanded, clanking the handcuff chain against the headboard.

Peter took an extra-long moment to look over Juno, scars and all. A sheen of sweat covered his skin, giving him a soft glow in the evening sunlight filtering through the windows. His pupils were wide, but his eyes were heavily lidded. The muscles in his chest and stomach clenched and smoothed with every ragged breath. He’d been hard when Peter had taken him in his hand, but now his cock stood fully erect, and Peter’s mouth fairly watered at the memory of his taste. But there would be time for that later.

He hoped.

“Patience, Juno.” He tried to smile, but even he felt that a little of the loneliness of the last months had slipped onto his face before he was able to smooth it away. Juno saw; Peter knew he did. A line appeared between Juno’s eyebrows as he frowned, but Peter continued as though nothing happened, “I haven’t found a need for any sort of lubricant since before I left Mars. Well, there was that one time Rita asked for some, but she was looking for oil for a door.”

Juno snorted out a laugh, but let Peter move toward the bathroom without further complaint. It only took him a moment of hunting, but Peter still expected to find Juno uncuffed on the bed when he came back.

Either Roberto Turquoise’s handcuffs were of a higher caliber than Peter expected or Juno hadn’t tried very hard if at all. Either was equally possible at this point. He’d have to experiment later. If Juno stayed. If Juno wanted to stay.

“Spread your legs for me, Juno.”

He did without comment, watching Peter settle himself at the foot of the bed and pop open the lid on the container. Before he got his hands all messy, Peter ran his hands up Juno’s inner thighs, leaning forward to place more kisses on the sensitive skin there. Juno let out a quiet breath of contentment. Peter grinned against Juno’s flesh and sucked at the skin hard enough to leave a mark. Juno swore, but moved his legs further apart. Peter wouldn’t leave marks higher on Juno’s body unless he asked, but he’d gladly leave some here. So he did, nipping and sucking and leaving red spots that would darken to bruises by the morning.

Juno hardly seemed to mind. With each bite, his back arched and his hands gripped at the handcuffs tighter. “Nureyev—”

Peter kissed the last mark he’d left gently and poured some of the lubricant on his fingers. It smelled of some unusual flower, something that reminded him of rainy planets with thick, old-growth forests. Not his usual style, but any spaceport in an ion storm, so to speak.

“Are you ready, darling?”

“Been ready.”

Peter let his fingers rest on Juno’s skin without pushing in for just an extra moment as a quiet punishment for his attitude. Juno moved his hips, urging Peter without words to get moving, but Peter put a hand low on Juno’s stomach to stop him.

“When I say, Juno. Not before.”

Juno’s frustrated moan was enough repayment for his attitude earlier, and Peter began easing a finger inside him. Juno’s back arched again, his head tipping back, revealing the long length of Juno’s throat. If Peter hadn’t had supreme self control, and something far more pressing to be doing, he would have dropped everything to taste the sweat beading there.

As it was, he slipped a second finger inside Juno just to hear him make that noise again. He did. A moan from deep in his throat like no music Peter had ever heard. And he wanted to record it to play when he was alone. And sometimes when he wasn’t.

A third finger, then, when he thought Juno was ready for it. Juno’s entire body shuddered, and Juno hissed through his teeth. “Okay, Juno?”

Juno nodded, his eyes squeezed shut, but it didn’t look like pain on his face. “Yeah. Yeah. Keep going.”

“Your wish is my command, my goddess.” So Peter did. He worked his fingers in and out of Juno, reaching for that part of him that would make him fall apart. One day, if everything went well, Peter wouldn’t have to search. He’d know Juno’s body so well that he would know _every_ spot that would take him apart, but until then, he would revel in the hunt.

And he did, watching Juno’s breath come in sharp gasps, then watching the pure pleasure wash across his face, accompanied by another sharp cry. Peter felt his lips curl into a smile and repeated the motion he’d made. Juno cried out again, yanking hard on the handcuffs.

“ _Fuck, Peter_.”

And _that_ was what Peter had been waiting for. He didn’t even think Juno knew what he’d said. Peter brushed his fingers against Juno’s prostate twice more, earning ever-more enthusiastic cries, then he eased his fingers out of Juno and wiped them on a towel he’d left draped over the bedpost after his shower earlier that day. Good accidental forethought, past Peter.

He kissed the front of Juno’s hip in apology at the distressed sound Juno made, then poured some more of the strange-flower lubricant onto his hand and began stroking himself with it. Juno moaned, and when Peter’s eyes flicked up toward him, he found Juno staring at him intently. Juno licked his lips.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve this,” Juno breathed, “but remind me to do it again.”

Peter laughed, then settled his weight over Juno. Peter’s goddess spread his legs, welcoming him. “My beautiful,” Peter breathed against the skin of Juno’s throat. “My darling, my light.”

He eased his way in, gasping at the rush of pleasure, both at the feeling of finally being back inside Juno after so long and at the quiet, desperate sound Juno made. The handcuffs rattled again. As though to make up for the fact that he couldn’t actually touch Peter, Juno’s legs wrapped tight around Peter’s hips, holding him close.

Peter kissed the line of Juno’s upturned jaw while he held himself still until he was sure that Juno was ready for him. That was an agony of its own kind. Juno was tight and so, so warm around him, and it was _Juno_. Juno, who had been dead up until half an hour ago. Juno, whose ghost Peter had fled from Mars to escape.

“You’re doing so good, darling.”

Juno’s breathing was returning to something like normal, and he tugged fruitlessly at the handcuffs again. “Nureyev, _please_.”

“Your wish is my command.”

Peter had enough time to appreciate the quick grin on Juno’s face before he pulled back and pushed back in hard. That had been how Juno liked it before, and he wasn’t disappointed this time. Juno’s eyes snapped shut and he let out another one of those deep moans. Peter loved all the sounds Juno made, but he was especially fond of these, the ones that took _work_ to earn.

So he did it again, earning that same sound, and kept moving this time. The rush of pleasure was so intense that Peter had to close his eyes to keep control of himself. When he opened his eyes, he found Juno watching him with something between awe and… and something else that Peter couldn’t identify… on his face. Love, maybe. Or grief. Or a mixture of the two; it was disconcerting how often love and grief mixed.

“I missed you,” Juno said. “Peter, I missed you.”

The sound of his voice made Peter’s rhythm stutter, his hips moving a little faster without his permission. Peter was already too far gone to drag this out much longer. “I missed you too, darling. Are you close?”

Juno nodded. He’d bitten down on his bottom lip again. Peter hardly needed the confirmation. Each little jerk of Juno’s arms as though he kept forgetting he was handcuffed to the bed. The way his hips rose to meet Peter’s as best he could. Those were confirmation on their own.

Peter slowed just long enough to support his weight on one arm and work his other arm between them to wrap around Juno’s cock and begin stroking him.

“ _Peter_.”

“Come on, my goddess, come for me.”

It only took a few more moments for Juno to come with a hoarse shout of Peter’s name, his back arching, his body going so tight around Peter that he was thrown headlong into his own orgasm. Peter barely managed to avoid collapsing onto Juno, somehow easing his way out and falling onto his side. He took a few deep breaths, then reached blindly for the key for the handcuffs in the bedside table again while he looked over Juno.

Juno’s eyes were closed and he was breathing heavily. His fingers were still wrapped around the handcuff chains, and goosebumps were beginning to pebble his skin.

“Juno?”

Juno opened his eyes lazily and blinked a couple of times before they focused properly on Peter. “Yeah?”

Peter’s fingers finally closed on the small key. “Don’t move for me for a second.”

“Not sure I could.”

Peter smiled at him, then unlocked Juno’s wrists, leaving the key in one side. He left the handcuffs dangling from the magnetic lock in favor of easing Juno’s arms to the bed above his head. He checked Juno’s fingers first, rubbing them and bending them gently. Then he turned his attention to the red lines around Juno’s wrists and kissed them in turn. Juno made a small, contented sound, and tilted his head up toward Peter.

Peter massaged Juno’s left arm first, helping him bring the arm back down to his side, then doing the same thing on the right side. Once he was sure there were no strains or knots in Juno’s arms, he sat up to grab the towel from the end of the bed and cleaned them both up as best he could.

He eased Juno aside long enough to free up the blankets from beneath him, then flung them back over Juno’s languid body. Peter was about to stand when Juno’s arm snaked around his waist and pulled him back down to the bed and beneath the covers, wrapping both arms around him.

Peter couldn’t help but think for a moment of the last time they’d lain like this, with Juno’s arms around him. It had been in a hotel room, and Peter had woken up alone. At least if it happened again, he was in his own home—more or less—and he knew Juno was alive. That might be enough to get out of this. Juno was alive.

Juno kissed the back of Peter’s neck, then let out a quiet sigh as he drifted off to sleep. Peter followed not long after.

 

Peter was alone when he woke up, but only for as long as it took him to open his eyes. Juno had just sat back on the end of the bed, fully dressed and it looked like he’d showered. He had Peter’s clothes carefully folded in his hands, and he smiled when Peter looked at him.

“Hey.”

“You’re still here.”

He hadn’t actually meant to say that, but between the relaxation that had been suffusing his body when he woke up and the fact that he had, actually, just woken up, the words slipped out. A flash of pain crossed Juno’s face, but he smoothed it away after a few seconds’ war with himself.

“Is that okay?”

Peter grimaced. “Sorry. Sorry, yeah. I’m glad you’re here.”

Juno set the clothes on the bed. “I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re up.” He hesitated a moment, then leaned in and kissed Peter’s temple. He was up and out of the room before Peter had much of a chance to react. Peter sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair, but got up and got dressed, taking a few extra minutes to brush his teeth and wash off. He added just a dash of the cologne that Juno loved before he headed out.

True to his word, not that Peter really expected anything else, Juno was in the kitchen when Peter emerged. He was dumping glass into the garbage can, and there was a sandwich sitting on the counter that Juno nodded toward when he noticed Peter’s approach.

“Eat something. Rita said most of your calories lately have come from drinkin’ ‘em, and I can tell you from experience that that’s not sustainable.”

Peter took Juno’s hand as he went by, checking the lines on his wrists. They’d faded to faint bruises, but the look on Juno’s face when Peter touched them wasn’t quite pain. In fact, something close to arousal flashed in his eyes, but he hid it again and waited for Peter to take the sandwich.

He was silent, poking about Peter’s kitchen while Peter ate, until Peter had almost finished his sandwich, then he turned toward Peter with a heavy sigh.

“We’ve got some things to sort out, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Peter said, putting his plate back on the counter. “We do.”

“Let’s at least sit and be comfortable while we do it.”

Peter led the way toward the living room. He sat in his normal chair, the one that he realized now was aimed directly toward a wall, although the window was only a little way to the side. Juno continued on to sit on the couch near the chair. Peter reached reflexively for the bottle of vodka he kept stashed on the cabinet next to the chair, then glanced toward Juno just as his fingers closed on the neck of the bottle.

Juno was watching him silently, hands resting on his knees. That look was back in his eyes, the one Peter had first seen when he’d been Rex Glass just before Juno closed those handcuffs around his wrists. A calculating, knowing look. It sparked something in Peter’s stomach. Not arousal, but a sort of cold, unsettled feeling. Like Juno had weighed him and found him wanting.

Peter released the bottle. It clattered a little as it settled back on the cabinet, and he winced. Juno’s face was still impassive, waiting until Peter had brought his hands to his own lap to speak.

“Thank you.”

“Juno, I—what?”

Juno smiled faintly. “Thank you. For making sure Rita was okay. I know she can take care of herself, but I’m glad someone was able to make it a little easier for her. And thank you for… for…” he trailed off, looking toward Peter’s bedroom door. “It’s hard to sleep sometimes. Knowing what I’ve done. You… well, thanks.”

“It’s still true. What I said after Miasma. I do love you.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that. I still don’t understand why, but I see it.” Juno took a deep breath, then leveled his eyes at Peter. “And I love you, which is why I’m going to say what I’m about to say.”

Peter readied himself to hear Juno say he was leaving or that they’d made some great mistake. He let the mask of impassivity he’d perfected over the years, back when people still called him “Pete.” Instead, Juno leaned forward to put his hand over Peter’s.

“How long’ve you been drinking?”

“How long’ve you been dead?”

Juno tightened his lips, then nodded. “Okay, that was fair. You don’t look good, Nureyev. I mean… you look good. But you don’t look healthy. I was gonna tell you that I was back, I just had one last thing to do. But then Rita found me. A couple days ago. I don’t know how, but she did. And she came flying into my place this morning, practically ripped me out of the shirt I’d been wearing and threw another one at me, then said I was coming with her. That you were gonna die, kill yourself, probably, if I didn’t come with her right then.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I’ve seen the amount of liquor you’ve been going through. Rita showed me. You were gonna kill yourself, one way or another.”

Peter didn’t have a lot to say in his own defense, so he sat in silence, his gaze dropping down to their intertwined hands. Juno squeezed his hand gently, but didn’t relent.

“And we’ve gotta deal with what happened.”

“With you dying?”

Juno let out a wry laugh, and Peter could see him shaking his head. “We’ll have plenty of time to deal with that, I hope. No, I mean—”

Juno cut off, and Peter looked up at him. Juno took a deep breath, visibly steadying himself. Whatever he was going to say, it looked harder than everything he’d told Peter so far.

“I mean after Miasma. I’m sorry. I just… I ruin things, Nur—Peter. I ruin things. I ruin people, and I break them, and then I move onto the next person. And I couldn’t do that to you. Not to you. I loved—love—you too much. And I’m so sorry.”

Juno fell silent, looking for all the world like he expected Peter to hit him. Liked a kicked puppy, Peter supposed the saying was.

“Don’t you think I should have had a say in whether or not I let you ruin me? I’m stronger than you think, apparently.” Peter hadn’t meant for his voice to turn so cold, but it had, and Juno visibly flinched.

“I’m sorry.”

“I came when you called me because I _love you_.” Peter hadn’t meant to stand up, but he did. He walked past Juno to the window, shoving his hands in his pockets to hide that they were shaking. He didn’t know what Juno’s new eye could see—realism tended to be traded for technological advancements—but he wasn’t willing to risk it. “When you called and told me you needed help, that someone was going to get hurt if you didn’t do this, I came running. For _you_ , not for your case.”

“Pet—Nurey…” Juno let out a frustrated sound, and Peter could hear him standing up behind him, but he didn’t come any closer. “I’m sorry. I know that I should have… said something. Done something. Done anything differently than I did. But I can’t take that back now. I-I meant to say this before we… if you still wanted me.

“I was just going to come here and tell you that I was alive. That I was sorry. That I should never have left you that night, or that I should have come back. Or… or anything. And then I was going to let you decide if you wanted anything to do with me, but I couldn’t just let you grieve.” Juno paused. “I guess I’d _hoped_ you were grieving, but not… like this.”

“What color shirt were you wearing when Rita came in?”

“Uh…” Juno seemed completely taken aback by Peter’s apparent non sequitur. “Red, I guess?”

Peter rubbed his hands on his face and turned around. “Do you see any red here?” After Juno looked around and shrugged, then shook his head, Peter crossed to him in two quick steps that almost had Juno recoiling, but he held his ground. “Do you know what happens every time I see red, now?” He didn’t give Juno a chance to answer. “You. Covered in blood. I don’t care that you left me, Juno. Not now. Not after all this. Are you going to leave again?” Juno opened his mouth as though he were going to launch into some explanation. Peter held up a finger. “Yes or no?”

“No.”

“Are you going to try to protect me without even asking if I want to be protected?”

“I—”

“Yes or no?”

“Honestly, Nureyev? Yes. Yes, I will. And I will do my damnedest to remember that you’re stronger than me, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.”

Peter sighed, but cupped Juno’s face in his hands. Juno watched him, every muscle in his body taut as though he expected to have to spring away to protect himself, either from hearing something he didn’t want to hear or, more disturbing, because he expected Peter to hit him. “Well, we’ll just try together, then, won’t we?” Peter leaned down to kiss the center of Juno’s forehead. “My goddess, my Juno.”

Juno curled his arms around Peter, fitting perfectly against his chest, with his head tucked against Peter’s throat. He breathed in deeply, and Peter could feel him smiling against his throat.

 

“Peter?”

“One second, darling. I’ll be right out.”

Peter glanced once last time over the information Rita had given him, then set his lips and spoke quietly into the comm over the encrypted line. “And you were sure to tell them what I said?”

A woman’s voice replied smoothly, “Yes, Mr. Donovan. Once I had identified your target, I said, ‘This is for Juno’ before I killed her. I have video evidence if you’d like the confirmation. Otherwise, the evidence is destroyed upon receipt of payment. Are you satisfied?”

Peter wished he’d been able to be the one to do it, but for Juno’s sake, he’d stayed home. And stayed silent about what he’d been planning. “Yes, I’m satisfied.”

“Then I’ll expect payment in full.”

“It’s in your account already. Plus a little extra, for that last request.”

A moment of silence, then, “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Donovan. Be sure to be in contact if you need any more of my services.”

The comm dinged the end of the conversation, and Peter stood up. He stretched, then turned from his study to enter the living room. Juno was crouching in front of the fire with his back to Peter. The fire flicked to life, first a pale red, then dark blue.

Peter didn’t flinch as much at the color. He still woke up some nights from dreams where the walls were bathed red and Juno bled at his feet, but Juno was there most of those nights to take Peter in his arms and soothe him back to sleep. Which was why he didn’t realize what Juno was wearing until he straightened.

A long, garnet-red dress that hugged his hips just so with a deep v-neck and a low back and a slit running to just above Juno’s knee. When Juno stepped toward him, Peter could see boots of soft-worked leather, or something like it, rising high on his leg. The dress was sleeveless, but Juno wore silver bands around his wrists and one around the bicep of his left arm. He wore a braided silver necklace with a turquoise gem hanging in the hollow of his throat.

He looked, well, like Peter’s personal goddess.

“I had one made in blue, too, if the red is too much.” Juno spun in a circle for him. “But I thought you might like to think of something else when you think of red.”

Peter’s personal goddess, indeed.

“Peter?”

Juno was right in front of him, eyebrows furrowed in concern, and Peter realized he’d just been staring. “No. No, Juno, you look… spectacular.” He ran his palm down Juno’s arm, fingers resting on the thick silver wire on his wrists. It looked _almost_ like handcuffs. “Are we going somewhere?”

“I figured it’s time you take a lady dancing. You made me a lot of promises a couple months back. Somethin’ about being at your side all night while everyone drools over me.”

“Is there a dance tonight?”

“Lots of fancy people with lots of fancy jewels for you to slip off hands. Lots of fancy people for me to dance with to keep you from slipping jewels off their hands.”

Juno stepped in closer until they were almost touching, ran a fingertip along Peter’s jawline, then turned away and headed for the door. “Change. I’ll be in the car.”


End file.
